Anyone can get a ride on Google’s newest shuttles

Google will soon give anyone in Mountain View the opportunity to board a bus. (Jim Wilson/New York TImes)

Soon, you won’t need to be a techie to catch a ride on a Google bus.

Seeking to prove it’s a generous neighbor, Google is planning to cover the costs of four local shuttle buses in its hometown, Mountain View.

The free shuttles will hit the pavement this fall, intended to serve communities with limited public transportation and running every half hour during typical business hours on weekdays and weekends.

City officials told the Mountain View voice, which broke the story, that Google transportation manager Kevin Mathy proposed the plan to city officials last year.

Google’s current fleet of chartered buses, which shuttle techies from San Francisco to Silicon Valley, have become a loaded symbol for community ire over the tech industry’s role in the rapid gentrification and sky-rocketing housing prices of San Francisco. Activists have blockaded buses and protested them since last December. One activist even recently vomited on a Yahoo bus.

Google, it seems, is now fighting the negative perception of its buses with more buses.